7 April 2006

 The Hon Bob Debus MP

Attorney-General for New South Wales

Dear Mr Debus,

Information which has come to me recently from The Hon Peter Breen MLC gives me serious concern about whether my application for compensation will be fairly considered. Mr Breen has been told by your Department that you will not support his motion on my behalf because the Court of Criminal Appeal had ordered a retrial on five of the charges against me, and the DPP has said that there was no point in any retrial, because I had already served the likely sentence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed my convictions because, in the light of new evidence which had become available, the result of my trial could no longer be relied on.   Those convictions have now disappeared, whatever the DPP’s reasons for not pursuing a retrial. The reason he gave does not mean that they remain convictions in some sort of twilight zone status. Having been quashed, they have gone, and I am as innocent of those matters as if I had never been charged (or as if the DPP pursued a retrial and I was acquitted). The terms of the orders of the court, and the DPP’s reasons are entirely irrelevant. The fact that they are being discussed in your Department as if they matter indicates to me that grave misunderstandings and perhaps bias are in the air in the Department in relation to my case.

I seek your assurance that those who consider my application will not be tainted by any such inappropriate attitude.

Yours sincerely

Roseanne Catt